My 2008 Harman has been flawless until a few weeks ago. The Harman auto start igniter failed to start the fire. Result as you all know was pellets spilling into the ash pan. I assumed I had to replace my 4 year old igniter. As it turns out I assume WRONG. Here is my story.
Full disclosure. I am a fanatic about cleaning the outside burn pot every day scraping it down to make sure its very clean with no build up. I have been using hardwood pellets this yeear, which have been harder to auto start. To help auto start I have a small bucket of soft wood pellets that I throw a handful in the burn pot by hand just to help start the stove, which has been working out very well. Before I had auto start igniter problem, I did a complete stove cleaning but I made one mistake. I forgot to clip the ash pan in which when it auto started a had a very wavy flame that generated a lot dark soot in my stove that I just cleaned.
. I fixed the ash pan and everything worked well for a few days but then the auto igniter would no longer start the stove even with a handful of soft pellets in the burn pot. I tried the unplug the stove to reset the computer a few times but that did not help. BTW I have always left the feed rate on 4 ever since 2009. More on that later.
After 3 failures to auto start after unplugging the stove from cold I gave up on auto start. For the last two weeks I have been manually starting the pellet stove with a propane torch. Its a very quick start that way but don't try this at home unless you are a trained professional like myself
.
Today I decided to clean the stove and check out the igniter I have been reading so much about. I took extra special time cleaning the burn pot outside and inside where the igniter. is. I really beat on the burn pot above the igniter. The igniter looked clean to me. I put the stove back to together and decided to give the auto start another try.
I put a handful of soft pellets in the burn pot and auto started the stove with feed rate of 4. After about a minute, I opened the door and felt the bottom of the burn pot. To my amazement it was warm, not hot yet but warm. This told me the igniter was not shorted out, which gave me hope. After the auger put a few more pellets in the stove I turned the feed rate down to 1, which pretty much stopped the auger from adding more pellets. Important note I noticed the instructions on the side of the stove actually says turn the feed rate down to 3 when starting the stove.
Now the stove sat there with igniter light on without feeding anymore pellets. I was hopeful. After a few minutes smoke and then fire. Yeah my igniter was NOT broken after all.
I learned that all these years I should have been turning the feed rate down when starting the stove from cold.
Full disclosure. I am a fanatic about cleaning the outside burn pot every day scraping it down to make sure its very clean with no build up. I have been using hardwood pellets this yeear, which have been harder to auto start. To help auto start I have a small bucket of soft wood pellets that I throw a handful in the burn pot by hand just to help start the stove, which has been working out very well. Before I had auto start igniter problem, I did a complete stove cleaning but I made one mistake. I forgot to clip the ash pan in which when it auto started a had a very wavy flame that generated a lot dark soot in my stove that I just cleaned.
. I fixed the ash pan and everything worked well for a few days but then the auto igniter would no longer start the stove even with a handful of soft pellets in the burn pot. I tried the unplug the stove to reset the computer a few times but that did not help. BTW I have always left the feed rate on 4 ever since 2009. More on that later.After 3 failures to auto start after unplugging the stove from cold I gave up on auto start. For the last two weeks I have been manually starting the pellet stove with a propane torch. Its a very quick start that way but don't try this at home unless you are a trained professional like myself
. Today I decided to clean the stove and check out the igniter I have been reading so much about. I took extra special time cleaning the burn pot outside and inside where the igniter. is. I really beat on the burn pot above the igniter. The igniter looked clean to me. I put the stove back to together and decided to give the auto start another try.
I put a handful of soft pellets in the burn pot and auto started the stove with feed rate of 4. After about a minute, I opened the door and felt the bottom of the burn pot. To my amazement it was warm, not hot yet but warm. This told me the igniter was not shorted out, which gave me hope. After the auger put a few more pellets in the stove I turned the feed rate down to 1, which pretty much stopped the auger from adding more pellets. Important note I noticed the instructions on the side of the stove actually says turn the feed rate down to 3 when starting the stove.
Now the stove sat there with igniter light on without feeding anymore pellets. I was hopeful. After a few minutes smoke and then fire. Yeah my igniter was NOT broken after all.
I learned that all these years I should have been turning the feed rate down when starting the stove from cold.
